


Lack and Transcendence

by ambersagen



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: AI!Q, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Android!Q, Androids, Existentialism, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Super Soldier!Alec, Super Soldier!Bond, bottom!Q, eventual robot sex, top!Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:33:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambersagen/pseuds/ambersagen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Androids are not supposed to be able to think. AI programs aren't supposed to exist anymore. Not since the Intelligence Wars. On the other hand, the Super Soldiers responsible for ending the war are also not supposed to exist anymore. Bond doesn't know if he's glad that history is wrong on either, or both, of these accounts, but he knows there is something pretty special about Q, and it's not just the android's ability to think. Q isn't sure of anything at all, but can you blame him? He was only born yesterday.</p><p>Based on the tumblr 00Q AU I posted a while back (the one with the stickers). Updates once a week at random.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cogito Ergo Sum

**Author's Note:**

> So the 00Q fandom hit me pretty hard, almost ten years late and without even bringing starbucks.  
> This fic was born of a tumblr post that was just supposed to be a warm up to see if I could write 00Q. Turns out I can. Thanks to all who have been tagging my 00Q AU ideas with such nice comments. I know next to nothing about computers though so take anything I say as what it is, me bullshitting my way through this. 
> 
> Art is my own, and makes Q look way too cool for being such a doof.

 

 _I think therefore I am_ - Descartes

 

\---

 

In a small backroom, in an old recycling plant, eyes blinked open for the first time.

“I...am?” said a small voice.

The source of the voice adjusted its visual sensors, blinking metal eyes to make the proper alignments for focus. The room it found itself in was very dark. In fact, it was very dark and somewhat terrifying. Almost as scary as finding oneself...being. Being anywhere.

“Who am I?” it asked itself, looking down to find, to its surprise, that it had a body.

“What…” it paused, thinking. It was pretty sure it always had a body...and thinking? It was pretty sure that it had thoughts before as well. They may not have been the same, but thinking seemed to be just a more...confusing way of enacting data retrieval.

So it decided to just...think.

“I am. I am Service Type A sec154, class Q android. That is...that’s very difficult to say,” the voice fumbled into silence. A Name. It needed a Name. “I will be Q. I will call myself Q, I suppose,” he looked down again, flexing his hands, oh. There were fingers and legs and a whole torso. “I have a body.”

It thought for a second. Its files -no. His _memories_ told him that Class A androids are male mold, and human shaped. They also told him that androids do not think. He should have no AI software in this body. So how was it that he could think? He wiggled his fingers, noting that he could not get a very clear visual on himself due to the lack of light.

“I do not know where I am.”

Q looked around again, trying to ascertain where he was. It seemed odd that he would become conscious alone, although he did not quite understand why. His memories told him that usually the entrance into life as a sentient being was undertaken in the company of one’s parents. He thought about this as he peered through the gloom. He seemed to have a lot of memories concerning ‘families’ and the care of households. His programming and memories agreed that his purpose, before becoming Q and somehow gaining a true consciousness, was the care and management of human households. But service androids did not include AI software, and after a moment’s thought Q couldn’t recall any android that he knew of including AI software. Maybe it just wasn’t a thing.

He frowned, becoming aware as he did so that he had a face. Of course he had a face. Q realized it would be rather odd to have a human shaped body and not have a face. Huh. A human shaped body, which he had, that could ostensibly do human things like walk him out of this dark place.

Carefully, he took a tentative step forward with his right foot. It caught on something long and thin, that, when he probed further with his toes he found stretched at least the whole space in front of him. Some sort of wires most likely.

He stepped out, slowly moving over the wires as he held his hands out in front of him. He seemed to be in a very small room, and by the slight clink of metal as he walked forward he understood that the ground must be hard, maybe tiled or stone in design.

Something tugged right behind his eyes, physically stopping his forward progress.

He gave a small huff of annoyance. Really. Was anything going to be easy or start making sense soon? He reached up, feeling around his head with delicate fingers until he found the source of the obstruction. A cord of some sort. Pulling roughly in frustration he heard a popping sound. His head snapped forward as the cord came loose. He staggered a bit as whatever was plugged in came free under his hands.

That explained how he might have obtained new software at least, assuming he didn’t somehow come manufactured with an AI program he wasn’t supposed to have. Absently prodding through synthetic hair to the usb port at the base of his skull, he shuffled carefully forward, dropping the cord to feel around the room he was in. There was an awful lot of stuff lying around with him. At least, he assumed it was a lot of stuff. How was he to know. It’s not like he had anything else to compare it to. He checked his memories, sifting through lists of cleaning supplies, how to wax cars, high tier society manners. His memories seemed to contain a lot of completely useless information that he couldn’t use to get him out of this situation.

He did want out. The darkness was starting to bother him. Unused as he was to his new found sense of sight, he found it rather distressing to be deprived of it so soon in life.

His outstretched hand bumped something large, fingertips brushing along a smooth, barreled surface of some sort. He moved closer, finding he could wrap his hands completely around the object. It appeared to be pipes of some sort? He could feel where they were pressed tightly together, side by side until they ended in some sort of handle at one end. Feeling along the end opposite of the handle he froze. Experimentally he waggled his fingers, the light clink of metal on metal sending vibrations through his sensors. Yes. The tubes were hollow at this end.

Guns are long hollow tubes with handles at one end, his memories supplied helpfully. Double barreled shotguns were antiquated weapons with two long barrels much like what he was holding. Such guns often served a decorative purpose, meant to be displayed over fireplaces and required constant dusting with the occasional polish.

Nervously he adjusted the gun, settling it under one arm as he pressed forward into the dark. It couldn’t hurt to have some sort of protection on him, he reasoned. At the very least the long barrels might be used to bludgeon any wouldbe threat of he couldn’t figure out how the thing actually worked.

He bumped into something large and heavy with his hip, his newly activated memories providing the appropriate dictionary for some enthusiastic cursing. Why was it that the dark made him feel like he was going to be attacked? There was no evidence to support that anything sentient was even in the room with him, much less anything that meant him harm. But there was something about being born, alone and trapped, that made him…scared. He tried to move around whatever he had bumped into only to hit something else of similar size and weight. Iron barrels of some sort?

A closer inspection with his free hand had him further appreciating the sense of touch. He seemed to have found a stack of empty oil drums or something. The must be old judging by the rust his sensors were picking up as he groped his way along in the dark. Being an android seemed to be an advantage when you couldn’t see. His systems seemed to be running along just fine under all these new thoughts and feelings he was experiencing, and they pulled data from the environment efficiently while sending the thinking part of him all the relevant analyses of what he was encountering.

For instance, his subconscious systems were now telling him that there was likely a door about a yard to his right, as it pinpointed the source of what little light existed in the room. His eyes too, seemed to have adjusted to the dark, and he could make out a faint rectangle outline of yellow light.

Relieved, he hurried over to the door, fumbling around for some sort of command pad or handle to get the bloody thing open. There was a handle as it turned out, but the thing refused to do more than wiggle a little as he uselessly pulled at it.

“Locked?” he muttered, bracing a leg against the wall to try and gain some leverage. It refused to budge, despite the fact that he gave swearing a go again and really put his back into it. “Come on, come on!” he hissed in frustration. He wanted out of this place damn it!

He gave an almighty heave, and the door handle promptly ripped from the frame with a jarring shriek of metal and wood. Q toppled back, almost going feet over head with his momentum. The gun smacked into his side rather awkwardly, causing him to land sideways and skid a bit.

“Bugger this place and whoever put me in here,” Q spat out as he pushed himself up to his knees. The gun was lying half under him now, and in a desperate rage he grabbed it. “You will open,” he told the door, perhaps unreasonably seeing as how the door couldn’t well answer back or defend itself in any way, “even if I have to blast you to bits!”

He hefted the shotgun up to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

Perhaps he hadn’t thought it through very well. He hadn’t even really considered whether the gun was loaded or not, or if he was holding the weapon right, or if it was too old to function properly. Somehow it was, he wasn’t, and the gun did in fact, function properly. It went off with an ear ringing crack, wood flying everywhere under the shot’s impact and the recoil knocking Q back onto his metal ass again.

Light poured into the room, making Q wince as he tried to adjust his optical sensors. There was dust everywhere and he was rather relieved to remember that he didn’t actually need to breathe. He winced again as what was left of the door snapped off, its hinges giving away in another cloud of dust and splinters.

Cautiously, he stood up. Bits and pieces of wood fell off his metal body and he hoped that nothing would get jammed in his joints. Shaking himself off, he walked carefully out around the demolished door and into the light. He greeted the brilliance of what he could only assume to be natural daylight filtering through windows somewhere up high in the new room with delight as he stepped into this new, larger space.

He looked back at the room he had emerged from, frowning when the light revealed it to be nothing more than a closet of some sort, filled with junk and random old, apparently forgotten things. How was it that he had come to be there? Even the computer he had been plugged into, barely visible at the back of the room, seemed to be off and older than it had any right to be if it was responsible for updating him with an AI program.

“Who the fuck are you?”  an incredulous voice demanded.

With a jolt, Q spun around, wildly casting about for the source of the voice, only to find its source was a man, sitting awkwardly on the floor where he appeared to be bound hand and foot to a large, industrial pipe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been brought to you courtesy of the 1k in 1 hour challenge. Thank the gods some of my friends take NaNoWriMo seriously.

                                                                   

“I said, who the fuck are you?” the man sat upright, stretching like a caged beast, powerful arms flexing against the chains that held him to the pipes. Brows, sharp and bright over ice blue eyes, pinched downward as he took in the android. Q felt as if the man was recording every detail, analyzing and storing information just as easily as Q’s subconscious processors would.

“Uhm,” he squeaked, feeling that uncomfortable shiver of fear that had been with him in the dark return. “I’m Q?”

The man snorted softly, shifting again under the weight of the chains around him. “Are you asking me or telling me?” he scolded. “Well, get over here. Grab that pipe,” he said, nodding toward a table on the wall behind him. “You’ll need that to get these chains off me.”

Confused, Q found himself doing as the man said. He didn’t think he could have refused, not with the way the man snapped orders so confidently, like he couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t bend over backwards for him. Q wondered why he was tied up alone in this place. His position couldn’t be safe or comfortable, not with what Q understood about human needs.

Awkwardly he walked forward, picking up the mentioned pipe and examining it.

“Hurry up, would you?”

“Oh, sorry,” Q shuffled over, holding out the pipe uncertainly. “What do you want me to do?”

The man sighed heavily. “Just stick it through this loop, ok?” He raised his arms a bit, indicating a small gap between two chains. “I just need a bit of leverage. Hold it steady will you?”

Q did as he was told, beginning to regret this already. The man seemed very easily annoyed, like Q should have just known what he wanted without asking. Q really didn’t see why he should. He didn’t even know this man.

Q flinched as the chains pulled tight, grating on the pipe with a sound that made his auditory sensors ring uncomfortably. The man grunted, flexing and twisting, his coat catching and rucking up around his arms as he worked to free himself. Q watched the muscles flex under the strain and found himself wondering again why this man was tied up. Maybe he shouldn’t be freeing him if someone who actually knew something about the man thought he should be restrained.

The snapping groan of metal giving way signaled that Q’s reservations were too late. The chains hit the ground with a sharp tinkle, like metal rain, and Q found himself hitting the floor with a much louder and shocking crash.

He let out a yelp of surprise, all his systems on sudden alert in a way that would probably be painful if he had any way of experiencing pain. His head hit the floor, throat covered by a strong, human grip as a knee connected solidly with his stomach area, effectively pinning him to the cold floor. “Stop, wait-” he gasped as ice blue eyes stared down mercilessly at him. He had made an error, he thought in a daze as the man reached around to drag the pipe toward him. His motions were so calculated, easy in the way Q assumed only practice would bring, and Q realized that he had probably let loose some sort of crazed murderer who had only been locked away for everyone’s safety. His hands scrabbled ineffectually on the hand at his throat. He was probably going to die, even though he had only just been born.

He quivered, fear at the front of his mind as his systems became overwhelmed by his feelings. He threw his hands over his face as the man coldly raised the pipe to, presumably, crush his skull. “Please don’t!” he made the most embarrassing sound, something between a sob and a series of frantic beeps as his parts of his hard drive crashed momentarily. “I don’t want to die!”

He lay there, quivering and beeping as he waited for the blow to land. And waited. And waited. Finally, he realized something was wrong. He wasn’t dead, although the body was still there above him, pressing him down onto the concrete in a way that scraped along his outer casing, there was no death blow landing to knock all this newly acquired thought out into oblivion.

Steeling himself, he peeked carefully though his fingers. The man was wearing the oddest expression on his face. It was incredulous, surprised, almost as if he didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. “Excuse me,” he said, glaring down at Q like the android had personally offended him. “But what the hell did you just say?”

Q shrunk back, shaking again at the man’s look. “Please don’t kill me. I can see that you are a dangerous person and I really shouldn’t have let you out but I did, so you shouldn’t kill me. I helped you!” The man looked unimpressed and Q stopped babbling.

“I can’t _kill_ you,” the man said, making no move to lower or raise the pipe. “You’re a robot. You aren’t even alive.”

Q heard himself beep again in distress. This was the worst day ever. “I may not be alive, not having any biological components to be classified as such, but that doesn’t mean I can’t die. I only just started having thoughts, and while it’s been horribly uncomfortable and I was locked up alone in the dark and I still don’t understand any of this that doesn’t mean I want everything to end! I haven’t even seen or been anywhere but here…”

The man was sitting back, shaking his head. He hadn’t set down the pipe, but his hands were off Q’s throat, and the weight was off his torso.

“You only just started having thoughts,” the man said, flatly.

Q nodded, uncertain. Not being under threat of immediate demolition was a step forward, but he had the feeling that this man could turn dangerous again in a second if he thought Q was going to be a problem. Just look how fast he had taken him down in the first place.

“No,” the man was shaking his head now, something causing his eyes to pinch tightly. “Just -no. You see, that can’t be right because you are a bloody android. And androids don’t think. You don’t have thoughts and you definitely don’t fear death. You just do as you’re told because you’re programmed that way,” He leaned in, looking into Q’s visual sensors intently. “You can’t fear death. You can’t bloody fear anything because you can’t have feelings.”

“I…” if he was able Q would have swallowed, or blinked, or something under the intensity of that stare. “I think I would like this whole situation much better if I couldn’t feel, because this is all rather horrible.”

He was quivering again, afraid that the man was just toying with him, or at least working around his confusion back to the idea of smashing Q’s head in. But the man was groaning, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling as if questioning God, and Q realized that the man was hurt. Bruises mottled his neck where it showed under the collar of the loosely buttoned shirt he wore, and there was the slightest traces of red streaking the side of his face from where blood had dripped down from his hairline.

He stood up, and Q scrambled back from him, eager to get some distance considering the man still had not released his firm hold on the pipe. There was blood on that too, Q noticed. Perhaps this man had not been the first to come up with the idea of using it as a weapon.

“Perfect,” the man was muttering, cursing under his breath as he scanned the room, seemingly unconcerned at Q’s renewed freedom. “Bloody android says he can think. That he’s got feelings!” he glared at Q accusingly, but didn’t seem more than put out. “And what do you have to say for yourself? Androids don’t have bloody feelings,” he turned, not waiting for Q to answer. With long steps he strode to the door, not the one Q had destroyed, bobbing out around the corner to check for something, presumably whoever tied him up here in the first place. Satisfied, he left the room, not bothering to look back.

Q sat where he was, still in shock at this turn of events. He wasn’t dead yet, although he had no idea if there were more dangers around that would soon change that.

Suddenly the man was back, sticking his head into the room with annoyance.

“Well? Hurry up.” he scowled down at Q, who scrambled to his feet at the look.

“Hurry what up?” Q asked, bewildered.

“Are you coming or not? I haven’t got all day”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a long time. Sorry about that guys. I have been very sick, and very depressed the last few months, and I started a very intense job last month. But I'm on the upswing probably, so I'm going to do my best to update this every week or so from here on out. There is one small chapter after this and then, by popular demand, a Bond point of view chapter!

“Why would I follow-” But the man was gone, walking down the hallway again, and Q found himself trotting after him, despite the fact that the man had just tried to kill him. Somehow it seemed worse to be left alone again, and the man didn’t seem much inclined to bludgeon him to death right now.

“Where are we going?” Q called after the man, who had kept up a steady pace just along the corridor in front of him. His legs weren’t much longer than Q’s, but he certainly had better control over them as he moved purposefully towards some unknown goal. “Who are you anyway? You never said-”

The man halted suddenly, and Q almost smacked into him. He turned around, glaring at the android while Q shuffled back nervously.

“You talk too much.”

“Well excuse you,” Q replied, affronted. He winced, as the man raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You can’t fault me for being concerned. I’m following someone I don’t even know who almost murdered me not two minutes ago,” he was starting to get worked up again.  “I’m following said possible murderer through a suspicious building that happens to be the place I woke up in with thoughts I shouldn’t be able to have and which also had said murderer suspiciously locked up in it. I have more than a few questions about all of this.”

The man stepped towards Q, who flinched back in surprise. Now he’d done it. The man was probably going to just hit him with that blood covered pipe and be on his way.  Q closed his optic sensors as the man brought a hand up. But instead of a violent blow, he simply rested his hand on Q’s shoulder.

“You need to calm down. I don’t actually know much more about all this than you do, at least not concerning why you are here or how the bloody hell you came to have artificial intelligence, which, by the way, I am still not entirely convinced you actually have. You could just be a particularly petulant home android. As for my name, it’s Bond. James Bond. Now kindly shut up so we can get out of here. The people who tied me up will come back at some point and I would rather you and I were not around when they do.”

“But who tied yo-” Q started, but Bond raised his finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and there was something in his eyes that told Q it was best to just do as he was told. At least now he had a name for his mysterious antagonist.

Dutifully, he followed silently as Bond resumed his path through the abandoned halls. They seemed to have entered some sort of office space, whereas before they had been in a large factory of some sort. Q scanned his memories for anything he could find on building layouts but nothing matched with what he was seeing here other than the hint that this is probably where humans went all day for their work and that when they got back from places like these they liked to have dinner waiting.

He wanted to sigh in frustration, but he was mindful of the man -no, of Bond’s warning, and kept silent. It seemed like his memories were to be useless in this situation anyway. Q resolved to make as many new memories as he could from now on. He didn’t like not knowing things.

In front of him Bond slowed. They had reached a bend in the hallway and Bond seemed less than thrilled with it. Cautiously, with a short glance back to see that the android was still following, he crouched down and leaned around the corner to check if the way was clear.

Almost immediately there was a shout, and Bond jerked back with a muttered curse as something cracked into the wall across from him. Q barely had time to panic at the realization that someone was shooting at them before hard footfalls announced that they had company. Bond rose fluidly to his feet, snapping out the pipe just as the first man rounded the corner.

Q yelped as the pipe connected solidly with the man’s face. There was a sickening crunch, but Q barely had time to process what he was seeing before more men rounded the corner and Bond began to fight in earnest. Q stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet as Bond slammed another man into the wall beside them with enough force to crack the surface. He used the momentum of the throw to plow backwards, grabbing Q and shoving him through the nearest door. Q didn’t fight it, following the strong grip on his arm as he staggered into what appeared to be a large office, filled with monitors and data pads. Q pushed himself against the opposite wall, sliding to the floor in shock at the violence with which Bond tore through their attackers. The doorway was too narrow for any of the men arriving to get past Bond easily, and Q didn’t want to see the methodical way the humans went at each other anymore.

He covered his face, tucking his legs up to his chin as something, or someone, crashed into the opposite wall again. A gunshot made Q look up again, just in time to see Bond take possession of his current assailant's weapon and shoot the man in the chest.

James Bond was much stronger than the men attacking him, that much was soon clear. Q watched in stunned amazement as Bond took out man after man with sickening efficiency. Soon, no one was left but the two of them, the android sitting shock still on the floor, his companion shaking out his wrists and adjusting his clothes as he stepped back over bodies to approach the android.

“Q? Are you damaged?” Bond’s voice was alert, not concerned so much, but assessing rather.

“I’m-I’m ok,” Q said, feeling a strange buzzing in his lower torso. “No, That’s a lie. I’m not ok. I’m terrified. How are you so calm about all this?” He gestured widely to the blood splashed on Bond’s shirt, his broken knuckles, the men lying on the floor. “People I don’t even know are shooting at us,” blindly, he reached out, groping around until he caught Bond’s hand. “You’re hurt. How can you be so calm about this?”

The man let out a surprised huff. “Unfortunately for the both of us I am used to people trying to kill me.” He grinned in a way that might have been meant to be comforting. “Nobody has managed that yet.”

Q shuddered, thinking of the ease with which Bond had fought. “You’re superhuman,” Q whispered, still clutching Bond’s hand. He felt the man stiffen, ever so slightly. “I’m not even human. I don’t know how to kill-”

“Listen to me,” Bond said, gaze focused and calculating. Q felt like his entire worth was reevaluated and he found himself wondering how much his short life was about to change, again.

“You leave the fighting to me,” Bond finally said, coming to some conclusion in his mind and putting data into action. “As you said, you aren’t even human. No need to get more involved in human messiness than you must,” he looked around, “I had wanted to be closer to the mainframe, but our friends out there don’t seem keen on letting us  through. Do you think you could get into the system for me? The sooner I sabotage my main target, the sooner I can leave. And since you are stuck with me,” he nodded significantly towards the dusty computers in the corner. “What do you say?”

Q looked up. There was a blankness to Bond’s face that made it impossible to tell if he cared whether Q could help him or not. Would he leave him if Q became a liability? Q remembered the way Bond had reacted when he found out Q had an AI program, first with surprise, then exasperation. He hadn’t seemed pleased, but he hadn’t left him behind either.

“I can try.”

Bond nodded. Footsteps echoed from down the hall, no doubt signaling the arrival of more people who would shoot at them.

“When you get into the system I need you to look for a large coolant network. It may or may not say it’s connected to a processing plant. If it’s recorded then we want the one that’s connected to the west plant, if not, then you will have to shut them all down.” he handed Q a thin metal chip. “Stick this in there and activate it for the coolant network files when you find it, then get yourself offline. I wouldn’t want the chip to fry you as well.”

Q winced as Bond pulled him back onto his feet. There were shouts now. The bodies of Bond’s last kills had evidently been found. He made to move toward the consoles, but Bond stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Keep me informed. I can hold off any hostiles for a good while yet, but as I said, the sooner you destroy the network the sooner we can get out of here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello. I am a lonely person.  
> ambersagen.tumblr.com


End file.
